Canon to build a new semiconductor manufacturing equipment plant in Utsunomiya
🟦 Canon launches new semiconductor manufacturing equipment plant in Utsunomiya
Cannon, a semiconductor manufacturing equipment manufacturer, will invest a total of 500 billion yen in Utsunomiya to build a new semiconductor manufacturing equipment factory. Utsunomiya has been developed and produced by Canon as the home of its semiconductor manufacturing equipment business. Together with the construction of the new plant in Ibaraki Prefecture, we plan to nearly double our production capacity by 2025. In 2, Canon expects sales of semiconductor lithography equipment to increase 2022% year-over-year to 29 units, quadrupling in the last decade.
🟦Increased production of KrF and ArF lithography equipment instead of EUV
EUV lithography equipment is used in state-of-the-art semiconductor manufacturing equipment. Canon will increase its ability to manufacture older generation KrF and ArF lithography equipment than EUV. The older generation of products is used in semiconductors for automobiles and other applications, and we believe that there will be sufficient demand in the medium to long term. Certainly, there are many products that require the technology of the older generation, such as power semiconductors, for which demand is tight.
EUV is the only one developed by ASML
The only semiconductor manufacturing equipment company that has succeeded in developing EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet) exposure is ASML of the Netherlands. Semiconductors are burned onto silicon wafers using a photolithography device to significantly reduce the schematic drawn on the photomask. As the circuits to be burned have become finer, we have adopted light with shorter wavelengths. The ArF wavelength is 193 nm and the EUV wavelength is 13.5 nm, which is more than 10 times the difference, and EUV exposure is overwhelmingly advantageous in simple calculations. However, Japan manufacturers such as Takeno Kiya thought that EUV exposure, which requires an investment of more than 100 billion yen, would not be costly, and did not proceed with development.
KrF: Wavelength 248nm 1990s~
ArF: Wavelength 193nm 2000s~
EUV: Wavelength: 13.5nm Late 2010s~
🟦Summary
In order to increase production of KrF and ArF generation lithography equipment instead of EUV, Canon will build a new plant for semiconductor manufacturing equipment
Under the leadership of the government, there is a growing momentum for the manufacture of cutting-edge semiconductors in Japan. I hope that Canon will continue to invest in development without giving up on cutting-edge technology.
